Letting out a yelp as another bolt of electricity arcs from the bugbear's fingers, Zeldana barely manages to twist out of the way. Electricity still arcs through the air and singes her, albeit not as baldly had she not moved. Questioned about the Magic Missile spell, the sorceress replied curtly, "He's shielded." Aiming her crossbow, she released a bolt down towards the fleeing enemy, but it flew wide. "Useless," Zeldana began, in apparent disgust with herself. "Maybe after I reload this I should hand it to someone who can hit." With a loud clack she slapped the next bolt into the weapon.

Gaius drew another chakram. With another arrow hitting the bastard, he might be able to bring him down with a lucky hit. “If he has one more those lightning bolts at his fingertips, continued pursuit by oneself could be suicide.”

“I am no better with a crossbow than this, Zeldana,” he said as he flung the sharp blade whirling after the mage. He aimed a little high to account for the added distance that would cause the trajectory to start dropping after about 25-30 feet.

His weapon hit and possibly finished the bugger off. “Well, look at that. I hit him.”

Kriger did not fair as well as the other two, the lightning bolt probably aimed directly at him since he mentioned a flying potion. He was burned from electric shock, but barely standing on his feet.

Koth took the two hits in his body, the arrow and chakram slipping past his armor to pierce something vital. With a scream of pain, he lost consciousness and his momentum carried him at a downward angle, crashing sickeningly into the building edge in the southeast corner of the keep. His corpse continued and crashed into the ground in a heap (T26) near the door.

Garm eventually caught up with the others at the top of the stairs and took in the scenes of injury. "What happened? Where is the bastard? Did you get him?" he asked urgently. Seeing the relieved looks on some of his comrades' faces, he assumed the latter, but rushed to the edge of the broken tower wall to see outside, and smiled when he saw the crumpled form of Koth on the ground. "Fantastic!"

He then turned his attention to the injured, particularly Kriger. "Right then! Don't move; we can fix this!", he said to the severely injured warrior as he fished through his gear for the appropriate scrolls. He then started to repair the most severe injuries.

Strat turned to Gaius and slapped him on the shoulder. Gaius’ hit was especially impressive because he was throwing the chakram through brute force alone, which was a far more difficult feat than simply firing a bow and arrow, which anyone could do.

“Good teamwork, everyone. We got that bastard.”

He felt a bit of vindictive pride at the fall of the creature that had hurt them badly. It had been only good fortune and a bit of skill that had ensured that no one had actually gone down.

“Well, let’s head down there and search his corpse for any clues. But before we trickle down there, do we need to look at some more healing first?” Strat took out his wand. “I still have quite a few charges left in this thing, so we can heal up without using potions and the like.”

As if to illustrate his point, he tapped himself with the wand. Healing energy surged from the end of the wand and sealed up some of his wounds.

Crossbow still loaded, Zeldana spies the fallen enemy a moment before heading downstairs. "Well thrown, Gaius. I have had quite enough of his electricity for one day... or longer..." The arcanist's voice trails down the stairs. Once back down to the first floor, it becomes obvious what has Zeldana's attention. "Now where did I drop my knife?" she muses, backtracking to where the dropped the weapon in order to unlimber her crossbow for the pursuit.

While the group helped heal up the burned skin, bruises, scratches, and such, the stench of the corpse was rather bad. It had likely been there for a few weeks. It was a human looking body, maybe a farmer or commoner, judging by the rags of clothing still clinging to the decomposing body.

Assuming the group had enough time without getting interrupted by more cowering defenders that were lurking about, they would eventually be able to find their dropped and thrown weapons. Gaius's chakram that missed from atop the tower would take longer, but he was able to see where they went this time.

With the magical pit no longer in existence, Kitty's body lay broken on the stone floor of the tower's lower level.

The immediate crisis over, Garm focused his attention on the others: "Alright, who needs some more healing? Otherwise I have some injured horses to see to..."

As he stopped concentrating, the smell of the corpse assaulted his nose with a vengeance. "Phew! This unfortunate soul deserved better than this... once we are done with this place, we should give him a proper burial. But I do wonder what that bugbear was up to..."

Suddenly intrigued, he started poking around the framework of wooden beams that held the corpse in place, to see whether any clues to what went on here might present themselves.

Garm did notice there was an unnatural illumination on the corpse... after a bit of study, he believed there was spell cast upon it so it will shine like a torch at night. During the day it was not so noticeable, but he could see it. His own spellcraft knowledge told him the spell cast was likely continual flame, a common spell used to create illumination for everburning torches and ioun torches.

"I am not sure yet", Garm responded to Strat's second question, "But have a look here - this body is actually continuously emitting light, by magic! I suppose that our flying wizard down there cast it originally. Perhaps the idea was to send a signal to others far away? A means of intimidation? Some sort of nocturnal bird table to attract flying creatures? Or simply because he worked long hours up here and couldn't be bothered bringing torches like everyone else?"

He stepped back to let the others have a go. "That's all I can see, though it remains a ghastly business."

"And yes, I am now almost entirely out of magic. Any healing I do until tomorrow will be of the mundane medical variety, or through potions and wands."

He waited to see if anyone else wanted to investigate the ruined tower room in more detail, otherwise he was happy to accompany the others down the stairs to rejoin Zeldana.

“Oh,” Strat said. He grimaced at the smell. The adrenaline had been pumping so fiercely he hadn’t really noticed until now. He studied the corpse on the framework. “Yeah, or maybe it’s a warning. Like he made an example out of someone. I guess…”

He paused.

“Well, I can search it later. Let me use my wand to heal everyone at least one shot first.”

He took out his wand again, and touched it to each person in turn. He would have to go downstairs to heal Zeldana, but that could be handled later. Once the healing energy surged through each person, he eyed the state of their wounds. He was no doctor, but Garm looked pretty good. The rest of them could use more healing. He touched his wand to everyone up in the tower except Garm, then evaluated them again. What had been wounds were just bumps and bruises, except for Gaius. Strat touched his wand to his friend one more time.

“Okay, that should do it. Now let me see if there’s anything hidden this corpse, before we go downstairs.”

He looked at the stinking corpse, not sure if this would lead anywhere, but maybe there was something interesting to find that was well-hidden.

Gaius sheathed his greatsword and thanked Strat, “I feel better, but I was not so battered that I could not wait until we got back to town, I think. With the bugger leader of theirs dead in the courtyard, there can only be cowards left in this keep now. We have only one door left and the room doesn’t appear to be very large.”

“But looking at that,” he nodded to the stinking corpse hanging there, “reminds me that we had heard rumors of this place being haunted by undead. With the hole in the tower, maybe this is what people saw and thought it was a zombie or something.”

With the lass heading on down by herself, the cavalier followed after to start retrieving his chakram that were scattered all over the place.

Downstairs, Zeldana makes herself busy until her new compatriots arrive. After re-sheathing her knife, she also spies and retrieves Krieger's bow. Turning, she looks at Katya's body and sighs. "I barely knew her, but still," she mutters, as she begins the task of wrapping the deceased using the enemy's bed dressings and Katya's cloak. By the time the others arrive, she is in the midst of the task. Wordlessly, she hands the blonde ranger's favored weapon to him, and then continues with caring for Katya.

After Zeldana is finally done with her task, she stands and speaks, "I don't suppose your friend here left any notification of where to contact her family? Hopefully, I've prepared her well enough for travel."

Now out of combat, it's hard to account for rounds of shield left. Leaving it alone unless something happens that requires it.Anyway, actions are as IC states. Retrieve Krieger's bow for him. Then, see what can be done for Katya's body.